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Monday, September 10, 2012

Minute Mtgs w/ a Tech Spin!

Want a great way to connect even more with your students? Minutes meetings are for you! Counselor buddy Danielle Schultz of The School Counselor Blog told us all about her concept of minute meetings and I thought the concept was absolutely brilliant! These short but meaningful meetings consist of asking questions to students individually as a sort of check in. These questions cover the ASCA Academic, Personal/Social and Career domains.

Here's some background planning that worked well for me on doing minute meetings:

-Make a schedule of which grade level(s), homeroom(s) you plan to visit each day. It took me about 3 weeks to meet with all my students (in 1st -5th grades). I scheduled 45-50 minute blocks to meet with each class. I usually meet with 2-3 classes each day. The younger students usually don't have as much to say, so you may need less time. As we got into 4th & 5th grades they have more to discuss, so we usually had to do 2 sessions of meetings.

-Once your meeting schedule is done, email the teachers and let them know what day(s) & time you will be coming to their class.

-Print a copy of the class list for each homeroom that you plan on meeting with (to keep track of who you've seen, who's absent, make notes, etc). I am very fortunate to have a counselor intern so we can split the list and we can work more efficiently.

-Before you begin your meetings go in the class and tell them what will be happening. Assure them that it's nothing to be afraid of, that minute meetings are a way to check in and have one-on-one time with the counselor.

-When you visit a class for your meetings. Borrow 2 chairs from the class (1 for you, 1 for the student) and sit outside of the classroom. When you finish your meeting with a student, ask them "can you please ask Michelle to come out for her meeting" this flows very well and you won't be a distraction by going in and out of the classroom. In some cases, I've sat in the very back of the classroom and held my check-ins there (usually with the younger students).

-For students that tend to talk a little longer than others (we all have them, but I love seeing them), I put them towards the end of my list so that I can they can have longer than the few minutes I see the other students.

Minute mtg w/ a student

So of course I had to add my jyjcounselor tech spin as I did my minute meetings.

-I used Google Docs to create surveys for each grade level with the questions for the minute meetings (it's easier for me to sort through grade level data this way, however do what works best for you).

Creating a survey in Google Docs

-The survey questions are:
1.) How is your day going? Very good, Good, Ok, Bad, Very bad
2.) How is your school year going? Very good, Good, Ok, Bad, Very bad
3.) What do you want to be when you grow up?
4.) Do you know where the counselor's office is? Yes, No
5.) Is there anything you want to talk to the counselor about?

-Once you've completed creating your survey(s) and published it (on Google Docs), open the survey link provided from Google on your iPad (or if you're using your laptop or other tablet device make it a favorite) and add the link to your home screen (it looks like an app!)

Add link to the home screen (iPad) or make a favorite (laptop/computer)

-I created a folder on my home screen for all of my minute meeting surveys for each grade level. I just tap on the grade level that I'm working with and I'm ready to roll.

Create a folder on your iPad with all your min meeting surveys

-Students can answer the questions on the iPad and you don't have to keep up with a bunch of paper. The students LOVE answering the questions on the iPad. For the younger students, I read the questions but they still tap on the response. Trust me after a few days of minute mtgs, you will know the questions and answer choices by heart!

Screenshot of survey questions on iPad

Once you've met with all the students you can simply compile the data from your Google Docs. You can view it in spreadsheet view or by responses view.

Spreadsheet view

Survey response view

I try to incorporate the use of the iPad in my day-to-day counselor activities as much as possible. Using the iPad for minute meetings was very easy to create and implement. It almost eliminated the need for paper and saved both mine and the counselor intern's sanity. We are currently doing minute meetings now for the month and will do a 2nd round of meetings in January as a mid-year check in.

34 comments:

I will now! I've read about minute meetings before, but was a bit intimidated by the paper pencil issue. I love your google docs idea and will work on this for my school this evening. I think this might be an excellent way to allow my adminitrator to evaluate me on my 1:1 interactions. Thanks for the ideas and inspiration!

Hi Shelley, I too am not a fan of a lot of paperwork, especially for over 600 students! Using the iPad has completely simplified this process for me. This also counted as 1:1 student interaction on my evaluation. Hope it works well for you and thanks so much for reading and your kind words!

LOVE THIS!!! Thanks for finding a creative way to make this more manageable! I would have loved to use technology to make this easier... unfortunately we didn't get laptops until after I did my minute meetings! LOVE LOVE LOVE that you can utilize your ipad to do this! I will be using the iPad trick to work with students in my current position as a graduate assistant working with college students!

Andrea I Love what you did with tech make over for minute meetings. My principal and I were just talking about meeting with all of the kids, but I too was very intimidated with all of the paperwork with over 600 kids!! Thanks for sharing this great resource!!

Once you've completed creating your survey(s) and published it (on Google Docs), open the survey link provided from Google on your iPad (or if you're using your laptop or other tablet device make it a favorite) and add the link to your home screen (it looks like an app!)

I can't figure out how to get the individual surveys on my ipad. i can only find the spreadsheets I created. I guess i am not "tech savy " yet.

Hi Tammie, I usually have gone to the live form on my computer (not iPad) and emailed the link to myself and opened the live form on my iPad, which I added to the homescreen. If you're still having trouble, email me directly at jyjcounselor@gmail.com and I'll try to walk you through it. Thanks again for reading, you'll enjoy using the iPad for min mtgs.

Hi Deb, in order to make the minute meetings paperless, you'll have to create the form using Google docs using a google/gmail account. If you go to youtube, there are videos to show how to use Google forms that should get you started. Hope that helps, thanks for reading!

Love this idea. I will be trying it this year. One question though, has there ever been any concern with student names being saved out on the web using google docs. I'm not very tech savvy, but am starting to learn so I'm not sure if there would be concern about this.

Hi! I love, love, love the tech aspect!!! Did you use the same questions for each grade level???? Were you able to save responses by kids?? I am just wondering how you were able to remember which kid wanted to talk to you about something further?!?!? Thanks!Deb Jankowski

Love this! Totally using your idea of the iPad for students to complete the survey for easy data compilation. Question for you...do you obtain parent permission for students to participate in your minute meetings?

I am very interested in using Google apps to start minute meetings with my students. However, apparently I don't know what I am doing when it comes to Google Docs. I started by creating a survey for my freshmen, but after creating it, I am not sure where to go from there.

I am finally going to make Minute Meetings happen with my 6th graders!! I need some help :) I am working with my IT guy to create the Google Doc/Form/Survey and have some questions. I do not see a survey option in Google forms - I tried Blank Quiz. Do you have each student indicate their name, so that you can match the responses to each student and follow up with the ones that indicate a need?

You're in the right place (Google Forms) to make your questions. You do not need to make a blank quiz, you should be able to start typing your questions and response choices from that screen. I do not have students indicate their names ( you certainly can have that as a question), but I keep quick notes to follow up on the class list that I have with me.

I want to make this happen this year :) I have some questions - Where do I find the option to create a survey in Google Forms - I see Blank Quiz. Also, I would like each student to indicate their name so that I can follow up with them if needed - did you do that? TIA :)

Once you get in Google Forms, you should see "untitled form" just name the survey and you should be able to start typing in your questions/responses. I don't have a question for student names, but you could certainly add that as a question. Good luck!

Hi..I just said I want to do this with my caseload but I was trying to figure out if I should do paper or tech. My thoughts on the technology piece is that it seems impersonal. Are they just sitting there clicking away. I want a conversation and sometimes technology gets in the way of the meeting being personal. Organization wise I know technology is the way to go so I'm torn. What are your thoughts?

About Me

Funny, laid back school counselor who loves working at JYJ, sharing best practices (well at least the ones that work for me) & tech tips for counselors, parents & students. Absolutely loves working with kids.